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Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives lost nine seats in last summer’s election. And lost their leader when a caucus rebellion forced Tim Hudak to resign.

Now, this once-proud party is looking for a replacement at the top. But it really needs a top to bottom rebirth, starting with the grassroots.

After four election defeats the Tory membership base has atrophied — from 100,000 members at the peak of its powers to barely 10,000 diehards today. Who can lead this rural rump of outliers out of the political wilderness, back into the big cities and back to power?

The last Tory premier to win an election was an MPP from North Bay named Mike Harris. But his scorched earth policies scotched the party’s electoral hopes for a decade.

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Now, another MPP from North Bay wants to take over the Tory leadership — not by picking up where Harris left off, but picking up the pieces after the Hudak disaster.

Introducing . . . Vic Fedeli, the party’s great white-haired hope.

It must be said of Fedeli that he is a grown-up (though even at 58, he is younger than Premier Kathleen Wynne and his main rival, deputy PC leader Christine Elliot).

He had a life before politics and it wasn’t all Tory (which may or may not help him in a race to win the hearts and minds of the party faithful): He ran a successful business and ran non-profits, then ran for mayor of North Bay, where he worked all sides of the spectrum.

In that sense he is the anti-Harris. And the antithesis of Hudak. After years on city council, Fedeli is unabashedly non-ideological and unapologetically practical.

Every politician plays at being personable, but his taste is more honey than vinegar. After the divisiveness of Harris (marginalizing welfare recipients) and the obtuseness of Hudak (mocking union bosses) — who both obsessed over the bedrock, right-wing, red meat, core Tory vote — Fedeli wants to recreate a “big tent” party.

For his campaign launch Wednesday, he deliberately chose downtown Toronto — barren ground for the Tories in this century, and a long way from his North Bay comfort zone. He attracted a diverse crowd — suggesting his tent has a little colour.

Fedeli rose quickly under Hudak’s reign, but has been quick to repudiate the nasty tone that suffused the last election. After two Tory campaigns dominated by negative rhetoric — Hudak’s 2011 attack on “foreign workers,” followed by his 2014 threats to axe 100,000 public servants — Fedeli wants to heal the hurt.

Rather than lampooning “union bosses” (as leadership rival MPP Monte McNaughton once did), Fedeli is reaching out to labour leaders. Instead of ostracizing immigrants as the party did in 2011, Fedeli wants them onside.

He promised to seek candidates among “unions, First Nations, Métis and new Canadians because they’ll see themselves reflected.” His Tories will be “bold but not mean — a kinder, gentler party.”

Like his leadership rivals, Fedeli is starting with style over substance, focusing more on process than policy. His early pitch is to empower the Tory rank and file, promising never to foist election platforms on unsuspecting members.

But there is some revisionist history already taking root. The candidates from caucus are furiously distancing themselves from the disastrous 2014 election campaign, despite having a strong inkling of what was in the platform pipeline.

Now, the serious contenders (and little-known Barrie MP Patrick Brown, who is turning his charms on Queen’s Park after getting nowhere in Ottawa) are earnestly recasting themselves as Tories who saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil. Just politicians with big hearts, overflowing with goodwill.

That’s all well and good. But as the rivals reposition themselves, they will presumably be judged on their track records.

Who will be most persuasive at returning the party to its Progressive Conservative roots while expanding the grassroots? Who can credibly soften the rough edges of a rump party, while make inroads in urban Ontario?

Is there a Tory leader whom Ontarians can once again have confidence in, and feel comfortable with? Party members will make their choice next May.

However many Tories cast their ballots — whether 10,000 or 100,000, depending on how many are signed up in the leadership race — they had best choose wisely. Roughly five million Ontario voters will judge their choice in the next provincial election in 2018, based on how much the Tory tent has expanded. Or contracted.

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